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UMD Student Makes Decision on Amputations

Posted at: 01/02/2014 10:33 PM
Updated at: 01/04/2014 1:18 PM

The UMD student who spent nine hours in subzero temperatures after a night out will need skin grafts, according to her CaringBridge site.

Alyssa Lommel's mother, Teri, wrote Thursday that doctors are concerned with how wounds on her right thigh, hip, and left knee are healing. Doctors are also concerned with possible infection. The procedure is scheduled for Monday.

Teri Lommel also says that doctors have asked her if she would prefer to have her amputations done during the same procedure.

"But only if she was ready," she writes. "They really care about Alyssa's frame of mind regarding these decisions, and will let her decide when she is ready. That's a lot to ask of a 19-year-old girl."

On Friday, Teri Lommel wrote that Alyssa has decided to go ahead with the necessary amputations on Monday.

"She is holding things together better than most of us, and she has had way less time to adjust," Teri wrote.

Police say Lommel, a sophomore from St. Cloud, had been out drinking with friends Dec. 6 and was dropped off at her Duluth house around midnight.

A passer-by spotted Lommel on the front stoop of the house next door about nine hours later suffering from severe hypothermia.